Despite the pouring rain and the gigantic waves visible to Katerin in the distance, her mouth was dry. The storm was a savage one, pitching and rolling the ship to its whim. The black and shining waves were capped with white tops and the glint of the ships lights on the water was dim enough she could not see other members of the crew unless she paid careful attention.
Everyone on board was working tonight. Even Huen, who was no longer under constant watch. Now the dwarves treated him as another set of arms, and worked right beside him without hesitation. Sometimes desperation brought a strange unity to people, she supposed, thought she was more than a little miffed that they would only accept him, now.
She could hardly hear Jon and Magrum as they shouted, and she shook uncontrollably. Not from the wind, but from the fear that gripped her. She could not tell whether sweat or rain coated her face and with every movement of the ship, her stomach lurched too. Her only experience with the Currents so far, had been much more pleasant. It had been terrifying to her then, but the storm and magical waters she had crossed to make her way to Itrea were nothing compared to the tyranny that this storm held.
Most ships would only chance crossing the currents in places where they knew the magic was weaker, but here with barricades of churning frigid water, wind that snapped the ships sails so viciously that she wondered if they might crumble, and rain and lightning to rival the power of the god of storms himself, she finally understood the true fear and power of the undisturbed magic in the world.
The Mynyrri groaned under the strain of its work, and she could watch splinters sprout from the deck. The crew swarmed around her, heeding every order their captain gave, and struggling to stay aboard when the ship tilted to sharp and heart-squeezing angles. Katerin wished desperately to help them, but it required her every once of focus to do her part in willing the Mynyrri through this storm.
Her only job was to hold enough wind in the sails, so that when they snapped they would not be torn asunder by the force of the battling winds. It was no advantage, but a matter of survival. She ran across the uneven and splintering deck, never letting go of the ship, nor her hard won control of a very small element of the winds.
"Jon!" she called, blinking as a curtain of water splashed onto the deck, and drenched them all. "Are we going to make it?" She scanned the deck to watch as one dwarf had his legs swept out from under him as a wave over took the ship, and went sliding aggressively for the tilted edge, over the railing. Another dwarf, this one with a rope looped around his chest, grabbed his fellow crewman and hauled him back to his feet, holding out the length of rope that everyone used to stay aboard.
Jon let out a yell that was very close to a scream of panic, though it was drowned out by the pounding of the waves. "Of course we will! But you better find a gods-dammed solid hold!"
"Now!" Magrum bellowed in the distance.
And the two other sails on the ship dropped catching wind and turning the ship so quickly that Katerin lost her footing, landing on her back and knocking her head into a plank as the ship tilted again, and she slipped across the smooth deck to slam into the railing. She blinked her eyes to the pain in her head, and cast another spell, willing the wind back into the sail she was to control.
Now Trunk, Arjiah, and Moki—the ships druid, were busy trying to coax the ship through the currents with as much magic as they could muster. With every lurching gust of wind and jarring impact of the waves, panic threatened to overwhelm Katerin, causing her breath to catch in her throat, and her vision to lose focus. Her eyes darted back and forth, between Brazen and Fykes as they worked. She watched as Jon and Fykes shouted to each other, though she could not hear their words. Fykes gave Jon a disdainful look, and Jon grimaced as they glanced up towards the mizzenmast, to behold the boom that held it in place had cracked, and now waved in the winds.
Katerin watched in a tense horror as Fykes began climbing the shrouds, up towards the sails with a determined expression. Shrouds, she thought with a disjointed sort of pride. She was finally able to remember what everything was called. She focused on her spell, but now she was ready to drop in it a second, should she see Fykes slip.
In her focus on the spell, and her searching for a place to dart to get closer to Fykes, she forgot to hold on to something. And as the ship lurched again, this time rising up like a champion stallion in a jousting tourney, she lost her footing, and slid towards the obsidian colored waves. As tense as she was she could not find the sense of mind to scream, and the waves battered into her, and carried her roughly over the Mynyrri's railing in a blink.
Her numb fingers grasped for any purchase on the ship, and found something, as the water fell away. The waves pulled her with the strength of a dozen horses. But what she had found to hold onto held her back, and it took her a second to register that she had not grabbed the ship, but the breastplate that Roahn wore, as the woman grabbed her by her shoulders and hauled her back aboard the ship with a grunt.
"This trip is wasted if we lose the only soul that has a clue of how to find the damned city," Roahn said, an almost threatening look in her eyes.
Katerin only nodded, too shaken to speak as she righted herself.
Fykes was near the mast now and his hair was plastered to his face. Katerin gritted her teeth and darted towards the center of the ship, latching an arm around the mast and staring up at him, ignoring the sting of the water as it fell in her eyes.
Fykes maneuvered into an awkward crouch, his legs hooked around whatever purchase he could find. He pulled a thick piece of leather with buckles adorning it from his belt, and with a gritting of his teeth he secured it to the mast. He hesitated only a moment, before he let go with his hands and stretched the strap out to the boom, working to buckle the contraption together as a menacing wave grew ever closer. By the time he was finished, his legs were cramped and his fingers ached from fear. It was by no means a perfect repair, but it would keep them sailing long enough to get through the storm, or so he hoped. It would at least keep the ship looking as though it was capable of winning.
Fykes' holds were nearly lost as the newest wave found them. He swung out over the deck, his heart sinking to his stomach and his shoulders burning as he fought to pull himself back to the rigging.
The ropes were oiled and slick, and more than once his fingers slipped as he began his descent. He glanced to the deck, and he could see his fear and tension reflected back to him as Katerin's eyes met his.
Katerin was nearly sick as she watched Fykes fight his descent of the mast, as she watched him slip and drop several feet at at time, grasping for holds. But she watched regardless, and held her spell as steady as possible, not breathing for many seconds at a time as he came closer to the solidity of the splintering deck.
When his feet finally found the planks again, she swallowed back the bile in her throat, and stared at him. He wore no smile, but gave her a quiet nod.
*
No one slept that night. They fought the storm for so long it began to feel like a war on some distant world.
When they crested the final waves of the storm they could see the sun in the distance. It rose with a brilliant orange and lilac hue that ran across the waves like spilled paint, or an accidental masterpiece. But its beauty was lost on the crew of the Mynyrri, as they sat shivering, soaking-wet, and exhausted. The ship was crawling along, with only one sail able to function fully after the beating it had sustained.
Despite his soaked shirt, and pruned fingers, Magrum seemed in excellent spirits. And Jon rose back to the deck, laughing. He pulled Katerin to her feet, causing her to lose hold the only dry blanket she had found, as he twirled her.
"We survived! We made it!" He hollered, to a series of quiet, dismal cheers.
Katerin planned on scolding him about the blanket, but before she could speak, she was running for the railing, and retching into the sea.
Jon patted her back and pulled her hair from her shoulder with sympathy.
She groaned as she turned back to regard him. "You won't be so excited when you realize you're going to have to sail back through that."
Magrum shook his head. "Won't be. I'll find another path if takes me fifty years."
That drew a chuckle from Fykes. "That's a good plan."
"It's time for a change of watch," Magrum announced, looking across his crew and passengers with a regretful look.
"I'll take it," Katerin said, as she retrieved her blanket.
"Katerin, that's—" Jon began but she shook her head.
"I'll be fine."
"Short watches today. Someone will relieve you in half a shift," Magrum said with a nod.
She pulled her spyglass from her bag, and the bag with Brazen as she climbed to the crows nest, watching the people beneath her grow shorter, and watching the horizon stretch. It seemed no matter how much she took, the tincture in those ruby bottles could not keep her from being ill now. And despite the magic used to dry her clothes she was still cold as she sat huddled in the crows nest, fighting her urge to cry, or vomit.
She had assumed the currents here would be worse than on the crossing on her journey to Itrea, or even the first crossing on this journey, but it had been a monster all its own. Had it been a mundane storm, it would have been bad enough that sailors would tell stories of it for generations to come. But during the rain and the waves, the air had crackled with magic so powerful that she had felt like a child again, standing for her lessons in the Tower and marveling at the power of someone who had studied for years.
She could name few others with magical ability to match that of the people on this ship, and the storm had thrown them about like leaves. When she looked back to the dark scar upon the waters where flashes of lightning could be seen through the mist, it seemed like a nightmare that she had not yet woken from.
Another worry that kept her alert, was what she had seen, the last time she used the crystal orb to check in on the war. First, she had seen Avris' eyes change, and that had been concerning enough, but then, the next time she had looked on Graiden, she watched as he healed and bandaged a dragon. A dragon who morphed back into the form of Avris. Her mind could hardly process that information. Did Avris have magic of a caliber to transform herself? Or was it the other way around. With the wisdom she held, and the unnerving sense of power Katerin felt while around the Lady, she was tempted to believe that Avris was, in fact, a dragon.
But that thought only made her nervous.